"Thick" Confessional Identities

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Wednesday, October 01, 2008
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Reading James K. A. Smith, I find myself nodding in agreement more often than not, and here he manages to say in a few words what I've stumbled over many times.

"A more persistent postmodernism -- one that really follows through on the implications of claims made by Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault (or better, the meshing of their central claims with insights from the Christian theological tradition) -- will issue not in a thinned-out, sanctified version of religious skepticism (a "religion without religion") offered in the name of humility and compassion but rather should be the ground for the proclamation and adoption of "thick" confessional identities. . . . In this respect much of the dominant discussion in postmodern theology or philosophy of religion actually shrinks back from the more radical implications of the postmodern critique."

JAMES K. A. SMITH
Who's Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church, pp. 116-117

It's always seemed to me that, as a reaction to the twentieth century's hollowed out evangelicalism, taking the process further -- getting thinner, in Smith's parlance -- doesn't have much going for it, whereas "'thick' confessional identities" have a lot to offer. Which might explain why, though I naturally privilege my own confessional identity, I feel an affinity for most anyone with a confession, even if it's traditionally at odds with my own.